A/N: This is really cheeeesy fluff. With secret relationships. Gossip Girl is not mine.

i'm getting lost in your curls

"Nate and Serena are right upstairs," Blair hisses under her breath. Dan just smiles against her neck before he kisses her pulse and Blair stops protesting when she finds her own hands tangled in his hair.

She should find it strange that they're standing in the Waldorf penthouse, waiting for Nate and Serena to get ready, and Dan's got her backed against the wall. But she doesn't. Dan's body pressed against hers feels good, and so she nips his ear because she hates it and loves it at the same time.

"Ow." She smiles.

When they hear Nate and Serena at the top of the stairs, Dan lets her go. He slides his fingers down her arm, and squeezes her hand once before stepping away.

Blair tries not to feel too disappointed.

She's not sure how it started. She's not even sure what it is, this thing. This thing that's just been growing and growing until three months have gone by and Blair realizes she spent at least 83 of those 90 days living out "what-ifs" and "maybes" with Humphrey.

She does know that one day they weren't and then they were. And yeah, okay, maybe somewhere in between there were drunken parties and study sessions and jokes about Blair in Brooklyn.

And then there might have been that one time, after a party at her mother's, and they had found themselves alone in the Humphrey loft. And maybe Dan had said something that had just made her so mad and so aggravated she didn't know what to do except reach over and grab his tie and roughly pull him to her. And maybe she had been so far past thinking that it felt like the most natural thing in world to reach up on her toes and press her lips to his.

And there might have been an empty bed just waiting nearby. Maybe.

She thinks they're doing a decent job of flying under the radar. Gossip Girl had speculated at first, lots of flowery talk about keeping your enemies closer and passion and hate, and really, she hadn't been too far off. In the end, she'd concluded that Dan and Blair's truce had grown out of a desire to play nice for Nate and Serena, and she hadn't been too far off there, either.

It's not that Blair is ashamed of Humphrey (God, who would have ever guessed the day would come when she could say that?). She's not. But this is special, this is different. It's not marred with childhood expectations or Upper East Side politics. Giving this part over to everyone else would be wrong and Blair wants to keep her and Dan close.

Blair likes to think she and Dan are more than just hormones.

Rufus knows. No one else does, but Rufus knows. Chalk it up to an unfortunate incident when she had stayed the night and Rufus had been there in the morning. She had panicked before remembering that she was a Waldorf and so she marched into the kitchen wearing Dan's clothes. Rufus had exchanged a look with Dan and then smiled knowingly. Dan had rolled his eyes and treated her to waffles. Blair had tried not to dwell on how absurd this all was.

She kind of liked it.

Out with Nate and Serena, between the laughter and playful voices, Dan grabs her hand and brings it up to his mouth. Blair feels caught, she thinks not yet not yet not yet, she pretends not to feel the burn where his lips touch her skin.

And then Dan drops her hand just as quickly, follows it with a sheepish smile and a duck of his head. Nate and Serena don't even notice, but Blair swears something in her shifts and that's when Blair knows she and Dan are more than shadowy kisses in dark corners.

Everything snaps into focus when she finds herself knocking on his door at two in the morning. She rushes in, words tumbling out because the silence makes her too nervous and everything unbearable.

"Shut up, Blair," and then he kisses her and she's not complaining.

It's just – it's just that he feels and looks so good. Even in his plaid shirts and gross flannel, and maybe one day she'll dress him in actual clothes, but right now he looks so Humphrey she can't help it. His hair is soft and his lips feel as dry as his voice, but in the best way possible.

She knows she should be worried by how much she likes him. Instead, Blair wraps herself around him so tight she expects (wants) to leave a mark.

Blair sees Chuck again at a party. He's looking at her coolly, smug because he has a date and she doesn't (although that hadn't stopped her from making out with Dan in the bathroom) and she can't even gather enough energy to care.

She looks back at him and thinks, this isn't a game, I don't care about the score, before smiling and leaving to search out Brooklyn. Maybe this is what growth feels like.

They're studying by the foot of Dan's bed when he casually drapes an arm around her and softly places a kiss in her hair. He goes back to his notes, but leaves his arm there, and Blair smiles to herself as she feels the weight pressing into her and wonders if it's a sign.

Blair won't admit it, but these quiet moments are her favorites. It hurts sometimes, how much she wants them to stretch on forever until she doesn't see or know anything else.

One day she knows it's time to tell Serena. When she asks Dan, he just shrugs and smiles, whatever you say. Blair's not sure whether to be worried or glad that Dan is so willing to go along with her on this. But then she feels the fluttering in her chest, and decides on glad. Definitely glad.

Blair and Serena are watching a movie before Blair turns to her. "I like Dan. A lot." And then she shuts up because she doesn't know where to go from there.

Serena looks shocked, just for a moment, before grabbing her hand. "Tell me everything, B." And so Blair does. She tells Serena about how it wasn't so much falling as tripping, about how it's so strange and bizarre but feels really, really good, about how he can make her so happy and so mad, about how it's not easy but it's not hard either.

Serena's surprisingly giddy about it (Nate's unsurprisingly confused about it). "He seems good for you," she says and proceeds to make jokes about her and Blair swapping boyfriends. God, that feels like forever ago.

That night, Blair drops a kiss onto Dan's shoulder before drifting off to sleep.

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